An Idaho grandmother caught a heartbreaking photo of her three-year-old granddaughter just moments before tragedy struck.

In 2022, Samantha Jensen’s mother, Jamie, was looking after her granddaughter Scarlett and two-year-old grandson Henry when the devastating event occurred

Now, two years later, Samantha has gathered the strength to share the final photo of her children playing together before Scarlett’s untimely passing.

In a TikTok post, Samantha wrote, “My mom took this picture at 4:47 PM and my daughter’s time of death was 4:52. My mom didn’t know she was capturing the last moments of her life.”

She continued, “I looked at the timestamp and realized it was only five minutes before her declared time of death, so it must have been taken seconds before the person hit them. This one is really hard for me to look at, just knowing what comes next breaks my heart.”

Jamie had just returned from taking the children for ice cream when Scarlett asked to get out of her stroller to pick some flowers. “That’s when my mom took the last picture I have of her alive,” Samantha shared.

As Scarlett was gathering yellow and purple flowers in their private driveway, a speeding Chevy Tahoe came down the dirt road and struck her, her brother, and their grandmother.

Before the impact, Jamie shouted at the driver to stop and tried to push the children out of the way but sadly, the vehicle was moving “too fast.” Samantha told People, “Scarlett was killed almost instantly and my mom and Henry were critically injured.”

It wasn’t until weeks later that the grieving mother found out her mom had captured a photo of Scarlett’s final moments. “My mom lost her phone when they were hit, and it took us a while to find it. When we finally did, I was going through the pictures and found that one,” Samantha explained.

At first, looking at the photo was agonizing for Samantha. “It was extremely painful for me to look at in the beginning. How do you come to terms with the existence of a ‘last picture’ of your child?”

However, two years later, Samantha has found solace in the peacefulness of the scene and shared it on TikTok, where she received heartfelt messages from strangers.

“I am so incredibly thankful to have that photo,” Samantha expressed. “It captures the peaceful feeling of her last moments, the beauty she was surrounded by when she took her last breaths. I will forever picture her happy and carefree, picking flowers with her best friend and Meemaw.”

After the accident, Henry was airlifted to a children’s hospital where doctors found “a fractured spine, six broken ribs, a broken jaw, a broken collarbone, a liver laceration, and several other injuries.” Samantha recounted that the two-year-old “spent a week in the PICU before he was stable enough to come home, and he had a full body brace on for 10 weeks.”

Both Henry and Jamie eventually recovered from their physical injuries but the emotional scars remain deep for the family. Scarlett, born on New Year’s Day in 2019, was Samantha and her husband’s “long-awaited first child.” Her grandfather, Jim Patton, shared with KHQ that Scarlett was “so full of life, so full of love… such a smart little girl.”

“A piece of my soul is gone,” he added. Samantha remembered her daughter as “the silliest, sweetest little girl,” who loved horses, unicorns, being a big sister, and the movies Frozen and Spirit. “The absolute joy of her life were her siblings. She loved helping take care of baby Molly and playing with her best friend Henry.”

Without Scarlett’s vibrant presence, “the house feels so quiet and empty without her,” Samantha said.

The family continues to wrestle with the actions of the driver, who fled the scene on foot but was later arrested a few miles away. “How do you do that? How do you walk away from suffering?” Jim Patton questioned. Samantha shared that the driver is now serving a ten-year prison sentence, with two years credited for time already served during the legal process.

Samantha’s grief remains overwhelming. “Some days, it feels like I am drowning, and some days I am able to tread water,” she said.

By sharing her story on social media, Samantha hopes to show others that “it is okay to grieve loudly.” She encourages people, saying, “You don’t have to do it in silence. Talk about your people, scream their names loud and proud, and never stop sharing their stories.”